I see that there is new DLC for this game coming soon. I never tried it, but I did somewhat like the older version that came out a couple of years ago. I wasn't too impressed with the reviews when MC:LA game first came out and so I passed on it. Has the game been patched at all? Is it worth getting because of the new content?

I think it's worth getting if you like racing games. I'm not even a big fan of open-world racing but I think they did it well enough that you don't have the problems finding where you are going like in Burnout Paradise. You do have to do quite a bit of racing in lower-end cards before you can afford to upgrade, in case that sort of thing turns you off. They did patch it to make it slightly easier in the beginning or some such.

I'm not sure if the DLC makes it any more worthwhile to you if the original package didn't appeal, but if it does then it may be worth picking up. Of course I got it on sale for $38 a couple months back, so my opinion may be tainted by not paying $60 for it.

I picked the game up yesterday, feeling the need to wash the bad taste of Race Pro out of my mouth. When this came out it was in the middle of the Fallout 3/CoD:WaW crush and so got pretty much ignored. Additionally, I'm always leery of street racing games because it's so easy to screw up the format.

I can happily attest that after about five hours of play I'm having a lot of fun. I never played it before the patch, but I'm doing fine at the easier of the four levels of opponents (green, yellow, orange, red) and can even challenge decently at the higher levels. I have the reactions of a dead otter, but since I'm a fan of the GTA games my street racing "skillz" aren't too bad. MCLA does an excellent job of allowing some breakneck speed through a whole city (well, a miniature city) of obstacles. I didn't see this mentioned in the reviews I read, but when you hit light poles and trees, you tend to glance off, losing some speed but staying intact. This is true of a lot of other objects as well.

What is also fun, and this surprised me as well, is that I'm enjoying the customization of my car. Yup, five hours in and I'm still tinkering with my VW Scirocco. I've got all the performance upgrades added, but now I'm tweaking the paint, the rims, hell even the size and profiles of the tires. Cool.

UPDATE: Hey, how do you take photos in-game to put in your photo album?

Did they take out police chases during races in the patch? I ran a bunch of races today and didn't get chased by any cops mid-race, which is a good thing.

During all the races I've run in those five hours I might have had cops show up two or three times. Since I never played before the patch I can't say how bad it was then, but I wasn't bothered at all by it.